


static

by Pezzythecat



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Everyone Is Gay, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/F, I have martin feels and now so can you., I'm still bitter about Tim, Lonely Eyes, M/M, Martin is the hero we all deserve, Other, Season 4 Spoilers, basira is what we all need in our life, canon typical spiders, cows?, freaky entity powers, jon is a archive gremlin, jonmartin, martin blackwood is an alignment, maybe? - Freeform, non of this would have happened if they just took jon for a pint, taging as other cause right now who knows what is going on ...., this is just a brain fart, to many mentions of the word eye, what the girlfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-13 12:11:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21494089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pezzythecat/pseuds/Pezzythecat
Summary: Jon's gone, or at least that's what he thinks.He needs to step up. He needs to take up an offer he would rather resist.Taking Peter up on his offer seems like a good idea, get yourself killed or die trying... after all what did he have to lose?
Relationships: Evan Lukas & Peter Lukas, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Kudos: 41





	static

He was getting used to it now, slipping through the corridors of the institute, unseen, invisible unless he wanted to be known. It was second nature now. It felt almost like breathing. 

It had seemed like the best option, hunched over the lifeless body of the only person he had ever loved to take the step towards the lonely.because for lack of a better word he was alone. No, Sasha to comfort him as she had so many times before. No Time to fuss over him in that mother hen way he thought nobody noticed, hidden behind bravado and flirting. Basira was dealing with her own loss and Melanie… well, she was never going to be his best friend; he was Alone. 

It was an easy place to be, natural after years of never quite reaching a place where he felt he belonged. 

It had been months. Jon wasn't coming back.

The visitor's register was short, other than Basira Jon’s only visitor was Georgie, and that was a conversation Martin would rather avoid. 

Around him, life went on, no matter how much he wanted to pretend he could escape the Institute he was trapped there with the ever-present threat of the next entity.

Someone… no, He, had to step up, take over protection of the archives. Stop whatever the next wave of rituals would bring about. 

Peter offered him a way out and he had refused.

But then he had seen the tape recorder. Twirling away in its omnipresence. 

Jon. 

He hadn't been able to stop the tide of the unknowing, but he could stop the next monstrous thing that raised its head. 

It had been hard to leave the hospital like he was abandoning Jon, although that wasn't him anymore. The lifeless shell that lay in the bed had no warmth, no passion, no life. Let the others visit an empty shell.

Jon was gone, he would do this for his memory, he would do whatever Lucas wanted and if he died in the process … well, he had always been too much of a coward to take his own life Peter would be doing him a favour. Elias wouldn't let him escape the beholding through death anyway. Even now he felt watched walking cold corridors late at night around an almost empty institute, stepping into the lonely seemed like the easiest thing in the world.

He had heard the whispering, the way the other staff from outside the archives talked in hushed tones: about the disappearance of three of the staff, the strange people who came and went at all times of the day and night, they gossip about the missing Archivist and Martin. 

Martin is their favourite subject. Why was he sleeping in the basement, what had he said to get the Boss dragged away by police? He hated the way they watched as he moved the things from his desk in an old file box, eyes watching as he took the steps from the dark dim ground floor offices of the archive. Witnesses watching as he took the steps to the first floor, towards what would now be his office. 

_ Is this what Jon felt like when he took the archivist job? _ the world seemed to close in around him, all the light in his world was fading and he felt nothing but despair, he placed the box down on the sunlit table before he dropped it, it was autopilot that leads him to the chair as he drew in shallow gasps of air.

The world was closing in on him … 

And then it wasn’t.

"Ah, Martin!" The familiar static that followed him around like a shadow cut through the claustrophobic feeling...Peter. 

The empty look behind the cold grey eyes drew him back. Peter broke the gaze, hands falling to Martin's shoulders where he had slumped in the chair. 

An image of Peter doing the same to Elias shot in Martin's mind raised voices… an exasperated expression that Martin had seen many a time on Jon's face plastered upon his old bosses. A raging argument and something being thrown at Elias.

Martin jerked away from Peter's touch. His head aching with this forced knowledge. 

Peter's face contorted, his eyes bore into Martin's flesh.

"Interesting" 

"What? " Martin tried to keep his face composed, trying not to give anything away.

"What did you see?" Peter pushed, seeming to be more solid than Martin had ever seen him. The blurred edges seemed to fade out as he glared at him sharply. 

Martin saw an opportunity for knowledge, he hadn’t got this far in life without grabbing any leverage that he could. 

"What is Elias to you? " the question was gentle, curiosity edging in more than the fear of Peter and what he was and could do to him. A well-worn hand tracing the back of the office chair, eyes darting around the office. 

"Volatile." He sighed, and for the first time Martin noticed the tan line on the older man's ring finger, Peter pulled the hand away but not before catching Martin's eye. 

"So many questions! The eye has you well trained."

"And yet you still don't answer me," Martin mutters as he starts unboxing his meagre pile of personal belongings on to his desk. His hand lingers on the things that don't belong to him, the things he couldn't leave in the basement. The novelty frog made from shells that Sasha … real Sasha, kept on her desk, the desk calendar with various awful pick-up lines and pictures of impossibly gorgeous people posing with cats in various states of undress that Tim had gotten in the secret Santa. His hand lingered on the green-striped mug with cartoon spiders on it. Jon's secret Santa, although Jon had known instantly it was from Martin, the tiny smile that tweaked the corners of his mouth when Martin handed him his tea had been worth the 'very droll ' and the eye roll when he had opened it.

He knew he was clinging on to a ghost, but he had to remember why he was doing this. The things unsaid by Peter were filed away for future use. 

Martin could feel Peter watching him again. The background static of the lonely now back to its normal levels. 

"I will leave you to settle in." 

Martin didn't need to look up again to know Peter was gone. 

  
  


Martin had not been able to shift the nagging feeling about Elias and Peter, it followed him in his isolation. 

The few times Peter showed up in his office he was careful not to touch Martin again. 

Martin had been reading statements, something he knew he shouldn't but with Jon out of the picture it seemed like someone should. Basira and Melanie had been making headway through the backlog, not that anyone wanted to, an obligation that they had no choice but to follow through on. The words tasted bitter on his lips, leaving a sour taste in his mouth, the words draining him, haunting at him in a way they never used to.

Martin finished the statement unsure as to how he had gotten to the end, or to the conclusion that he had, was this the power of the eye? Was he to feel the pull of the statements the same way as Jon had? The tape-recorded clicked off of its own accord. He glared at it in the low light of the lamp, each time a tape recorder showed up unannounced he thought of Jon, he missed Jon. Whenever the cold creep of the lonely snuck upon him he reminded himself that he was doing this for Jon.

He could hear the sounds of the t.v in the break room drifting up the stairs, the sound of Melanie stalking the corridors as doors slammed behind her. 

The tape recorder clicked on beside him, he stared at it for a moment before looking into the darkness of the office corner. Sure enough, Peter lent against a filing cabinet eyes fixed on Martin.

Martin could taste the last statement on his tongue, curiosity and the thrust of the eye compelled him to try something, something that had been bothering him since he had started reading the statements aloud, he needed to know, even if it was some entity prodding him in that direction rather than his own needs.

“Peter, what is Elias to you?” 

The tone of his voice scared him, it felt as if someone else was controlling him, but still… he wanted to know, wanted to understand.

Peter looked at him, torn between amused and impressed.

“Good question. What is your precious archivist to you?” he tipped his head to one side as if he were trying to shake the water from his ears, the sound of the Lonely rushed around them at that moment, the dull fog that filled Martins head whenever Peter around became stronger. Martin was aware of how close Peter had come only when he saw the hand come down on the arm of his chair. Martin could feel the breath on his ear as the older man lent into him whispering

“Elias is mine, or maybe I’m his? Who knows? It’s easy to love a monster when you're one yourself you see, and in the end, as long as you keep your god happy what’s to stop you getting exactly what you always wanted?”

Martin watched as the fog dissipated. Peter sagged into his chair across from him, looking agitated at the information that Martin had pulled from him.

“You and Elias? Really?” he hadn’t meant to question it, he knew it was true, the fact was in his mind now as if it had always been there.

“You don’t have the monopoly on pining Blackwood. No more than I, but it helps to feed our god so who are we to judge.” 

“But Elias!”

“Is what he is… just as you are you, and your little Archivist is him, human nature can be manipulated but it can’t be destroyed.” Peter’s voice cracked “You wanted to know so now you do.” 

“But if you both serve different entities how…”

“You find a way, plus divorce is easy with a good lawyer.” Peter glanced to his hand. A silver band was back on his finger. Something else Martin had never noticed before. “You can still love someone and serve the Lonely. It’s not that hard, nothing lonelier than the heart. I’m sure you understand.” 

With that, he was gone.

“What the fuck am I supposed to do with that information?” It was directed at the tape, he glared at it as it continued to record. “You are no help at all,” he muttered under his breath as he paced the room trying to unpack all the information. 

Elias and Peter were together, somehow it made the most sense out of everything that was going on around him, it explained why Peter had stepped in from nowhere to become head of the Institute. But how could an avatar of the lonely be so interwoven with the Eye? Was there more to this? Or was he just being even more paranoid than before? Even so, Peter and Elias? And how did he know about Martin’s feelings for Jon, had he and Elias been using them for pillow talk, gossiping about the archive staff? It was all becoming even more confusing by the moment, the whole thing seeming like one final dig at him. Elias and Peter were together and he was alone. Jon was as good as dead and he had lost the only friends he had ever known. The heaviness of the fog sat in his chest as he sank back into the chair glaring at the spooling tape, recording nothing but his torment. He was just about to reach out and turn it off when his phone buzzed. 

Glancing at it with confusion he swiped to open the message from Basira. 

His eyes prickled with angry tears as he read the words “Jon’s awake”.


End file.
